Fragments of Time
by a warrior queen
Summary: The person that you take a bullet for is behind the trigger. —SasuSaku. Gang!Fic.
1. Prologue

**dedication: **To Daisy and Chloe coz we are now the Holy Trinity. And to Rhea coz she keeps me from going backspace-button happy.  
**summary: **Here I am stuck in the middle with you.  
**notes: **By Saturday I'm going to have one hundred fics, you guys have no idea how excited that makes me. As it goes, not counting oneshots, I tend to have fics I concentrate on the most (AKA Snake Charmer, Theorem and to some extent shots of color) and fics I go to when I'm in need of a break. This is a combination of both. And anyway, everything will end up completed at some point, I can promise you that. ANYWAY ENJOY MY GANGFIC.

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**Fragments of Time**

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He wakes up with a start, jumping on the bed, sitting up and gasping, loud and without restraint and agonized. He coughs, his lungs rusty and unaccustomed to stretching and sucking in such an amount of air. His head pounds in the most unpleasant way, his vision blurs and he is quick to drop back onto the bed, shifting and only acknowledging his surroundings at the restraints he feels on his arms.

He looks down at them, moving them around and watching the cords stabbed into him jiggle at his movements.

Where… Is he?

He looks around at the bland walls—white and disturbing, a single abstract portrait hanging on the wall, right across from him. Mocking, he decides as he stares at it for a few seconds longer. There's a curtain that, if pulled out, secludes him from the rest of the room, hides him from the chairs where his possible-visitors would sit and blocks the small window where the moonlight peeks in through.

Hospital, he realizes.

He's inside a hospital.

But why?

He pats as his chest, feeling nothing—not a single surge of pain or… Anything. There is absolutely nothing wrong with him; this is a mistake, clearly, he decides. They have all made a mistake, took him in for someone else and treated him for something that… That is not there. It's so obvious… So transparent—nothing is _wrong_ with him.

He grabs the stiff blankets and pulls them off him, making to sit up, stand up and leave.

But when he tries to command his legs to swing off the edge of the rigid bed… Nothing happens.

He blanches out, furrowing his brow and attempting again. How… Is this possible? How hard is it to stand up and off a bed and leave? Why are his legs not cooperating? What… Happened?

What happened to him?

His heart monitor picks up speed as he begins to panic, not knowing anything, not remembering anything—who _is_ he, anyway?

Who is he? Why can't he remember anything about himself, what color are his eyes, what color is his hair, how old is he? Where is he from? Why is he here? Who did this to him? Who saved him?

What happened?

His heart monitor continues to pick up speed and soon a nurse bursts in through the door, her eyes wide and ready to fix him… Except she isn't prepared to see him awake, his eyes wide open and wild with confusion, shock and even fear because his legs weren't moving and he's in a hospital without a single clue as to why, without a single idea as to who he is.

"Oh, god," she whispers before running out the room again.

He opens his mouth and tries to scream at her to come back, but all that comes out is a dry croak.

He growls, arching his back but falling back onto the bed—useless.

The nurse returns with someone following in after her; another woman, he realizes. Spiky, short pink hair, sharp green eyes and a killer smirk as she bends over, above him one of her eyebrows raised. She lifts a hand up and he flinches, even as she places it on his forehead, smoothing back his messy forelocks, caressing his face.

"It's okay," she says, softly, her expression softening up as well. "It's okay, you're okay."

He stares at her, his lips curling into a sneer and wanting to hiss at her that everything is _not_ okay because he can't _move_ and he apparently can't _speak_ either.

"Do it," she says, turning towards the nurse and pulling away from him.

His eyes are frantic as they turn towards the nurse that nears him from his other side, an injection in her hands. And how he wishes he could move away from it, feeling unsafe and not knowing its purpose; but the most he can do is scoot away from it and that is limited because he has nowhere else to run when he reaches the edge of the bed.

He groans in protest and the pink-haired woman shushes him, her hand on his head, her fingers tangled in his hair.

"It's okay," she repeats, softly.

The injection stabs into his skin, acute and numbing, and he slowly begins to realize that everything is growing black.

He grunts, his eyes rolling back, and falls back to sleep.

* * *

The second time he wakes up, it is less eventful. His eyes flutter open, vision blurry and unfocused. He blinks a couple of times, fists clenching the bed sheets as he tries to sit up into a sitting position; it's hard, especially since the bottom half of his body is dead weight, but he manages to at least come up to a slouched position.

"You're awake!"

He turns towards her, taking in her relax form as she sits on one of the chairs, a leg crossed over the other, the thigh-high stockings being held up by the straps connected to—what he most likely notes—a garter belt, under her dress. She's smiling at him, bright and friendly—as if they have known each other for years and she's happy to see him alright.

He stares at her with annoyance.

"You must be hungry," she comments, tilting her head, her hair cascading to one side.

"W—w—w…ho… a-am… I…?" He croaks out, his voice dry and broken with abandonment.

Her eyes are the brightest of green, yellow and silver and gold—bewitching and nerve-wracking. She stares at him, her expression sobering up for a second or two before her lips crack into another pleasant smile. "Yes, as I thought. You're hungry for answers."

He stares at her.

"Well, I suppose I should introduce myself first, hm?" She stands up, smoothing her short black dress and the bow-tie resting a few inches above her chest. "I'm Sakura Haruno! I've been put in charge to look after you and your recovery and _boy_ was it a long process. You've been out cold for almost two years now; I was beginning to lose hope."

Out… Cold…? For two years?

He had been in a coma… For two years…

"Wh—why?"

She pauses, stares at him and he can almost see the way she's analyzing him, her facial expression impassive—clinical, even.

"I wish I knew," she finally murmurs, her pink lips barely moving. A second later she perks up, nearing him and hovering above him. "You, though, are named Sasuke."

Sasuke…

His name—that is his name; Sasuke.

He clears his throat, licking his dry lips and hoping his words didn't fail him as he asks, "What… Is my surname?"

"You don't have one," she chirps with a big smile. "You're just Sasuke."

If this bothers him, he doesn't let the feeling manifest and grow any bigger. He has so many questions he doesn't have answers to and the way this girl—this Sakura Haruno—was throwing the answers to his face makes him want to ask everything before she grows bored and decides to leave with all his clumsy words at the tip of his tongue.

"Where am I?"

"Konoha," she says, sitting at the edge of his bed, fixing his blankets with a soft touch. "You're in Konoha; in the medical ward of the old Namikaze Manor."

He furrows his brow. "…Who…?"

She laughs, softly, placing her hand above his. "All in due time, hm, Sasuke-kun? How about you rest up while I find you some food; you need to restore your energy so we can start therapy to get you walking again."

* * *

Sasuke realizes two things, that day.

One is that he has never felt such a hunger—gripping and immobilizing, muscle clenching and mind shuddering—upon smelling the food Sakura had brought back. A full tray of any and all breakfast he could have ever thought of—pancakes, waffles, French toast, hashbrown, eggs, sausage links, bacon, orange juice and coffee—he devoured every last bit and still had room for more.

The second is that men stand outside his door, dressed to impress and with guns in their hands, ready to shoot down any oncoming threat.

Which has Sasuke wondering who would come to threaten him and why would they threatened him to begin with?

He sits on his bed, staring out the window as the sun begins to set. He can't see much other than the sky and the top of trees from the courtyard, but it's something to look at. The antsy feeling and the desire to move is slowly beginning to eat him alive and he's wondering when exactly his therapy will start and how long will it take?

And who are those men with guns?

Who is Sakura?

What is it that he doesn't know?

Everything, he tries to remind himself. He doesn't know a single thing other than the few questions Sakura answered with that annoying smile of hers. Anything else is just a fuzzy buzz; like the feeling one gets when a limb falls asleep. He keeps trying to think back to the last thing he's ever done but everything is static noise and empty black voids.

He doesn't remember a single thing.

* * *

He's close to falling asleep when he hears voices outside his door. His eyes snap open, elbows supporting his weight as he stares at the door, trying to make out what's being said, but it's so muffled that he can't really catch anything other than the fact that they are obviously all men.

The door is cracked open, and then pushed open and someone walks in.

Sasuke had been expecting Sakura but instead a tall blond walks in, his hair messy and ruffled, his blue eyes wide and filled with mischief.

He's never seen him in his life, either. But then he counters that he doesn't remember his life prior to his mysterious memory loss and accident, so the statement didn't really count. Sasuke watches him with wary eyes, his hands clenching into fists; he doesn't know what good the action is, but it at least makes him feel a bit secure.

"Hey!"

Sasuke frowns at him.

"I'm Naruto—Naruto Uzumaki."

"Congratulations," Sasuke murmurs, his brow furrowing.

Naruto stares at him, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, tilting his head in a way that was very much alike Sakura's. He is studying, Sasuke knows, and he wonders why they keep doing that… Studying him like he's some specimen; like he's not from this world. As if he's done something notable or something.

"I'm not s'posed to be here," Naruto confesses, shifting in his stance. "But Sakura told me you finally woke up so I figured you're probably tired of bein' all cooped up in here. So I came to show you around!"

Sasuke stares at him, at this giant beaming at him with excitement. He doesn't know how to react, what to respond, but he has the itching feeling of calling him an idiot.

"I can't walk," he settles into saying.

Naruto stares at him again before thrusting a finger in the air and giving him a grin and a wink. "See, I thought about that. So I brought a wheelchair! Bring it in, boys!"

The door opens, again, and one of the two guards pushes a wheelchair in and parks it right next to his bed. Sasuke stares at it as if it's the bringer of all things evil and grunts in surprise when he is lifted off the bed. He shifts a bit, trying hard to not fight against them lest he falls to the ground. He does feel degraded, though, and glares as he's seated on the chair, his hands gripping the armrests.

"Boss is going to be angry," one of the guards says.

Naruto scoffs as he walks towards the wheelchair, gripping the handles and beginning to lead him out the room. "Jeez, s'not like I'm going to kidnap him, man. He needs some fresh air!"

They shake their heads, resuming their post even as Naruto leads him away, down a hall.

"Why is your boss going to be angry? Who is your boss?"

"Not 'boss'," Naruto drawls as he turns a corner. "Boss."

"…What?"

"There's a difference in the way you say it," he goes on; his steps slow so Sasuke could observe everything. "The way you said it makes it seem like any old boss, a bakery shop boss, a mall shop boss… Any of that. But my Boss is the kind of Boss that handles deals and influences political figures and sends people like me out to get rid of anyone that threatens his system."

Sasuke is quiet as he lets all this settle in, his eyes turning from one side to the other as he took in the extended halls. Everything is as bland as the room he's being kept in; walls having yellow stains from how old and unmaintained everything is.

"So you're a gangster?"

"Yup."

They pass by a hall with its entire left wall being made out of windows; the moon's light illuminates them in a soft glow and he stares at the trees, at the cars, at the gates.

"Then why am I here?"

"D'aw, Sasuke," Naruto drawls, stopping the wheelchair and walking around it to stand in front of him. His arms are spread open, leather jacket stretching along with his movements and exposing the two guns resting inside his shoulder holsters, on either side of his chest, a few inches under his arms. "Coz you're one of us, duh!"


	2. Cockroach

**dedication: **Still goes out to the Holy Trinity and Rhea because it's Rhea and I love her.  
**summary: **The person that you take a bullet for is behind the trigger.  
**notes: **Sooo, I finally know what the plot of this is? It's probably gonna mindfuck me as I try to execute it and I might take breaks and I might end up giving up but I am going to try because blood and stuff; I dig all that. So yeah.

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* * *

Three Months Later

* * *

"So, you mean to tell me," he drawls, reaching inside the pocket of his leather jacket, taking out a pack of cigs and pulling out a stick. He slips it in between his lips, patting at the pockets of his jeans in search for his lighter. His eyes never leave the man in front of him. "So, you mean to tell me that you paid my Boss already."

"Yea'!" The man grunts, his eyes narrowed and squinty, cheeks chubby and glistening with the sweat that continues to roll off him by the second. "Yea' I already paid 'im! There gots to be some misund'standin'."

He lights his cig and takes a step closer towards the man, his head tilted and his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. "So… If you already paid my Boss… Then why did he send us for your head?"

The man's eyes grow wide and he begins to fight against the thick ropes that tie him to his chair, grunting and groaning and half-screaming for mercy.

He looks like swine, honestly, he decides as he takes a long drag of his cig in his attempts to gather his patience; he isn't one for noise and the thrashing and screaming are beginning to give him a headache. He reaches inside his jacket, to his left shoulder holster, and pulls one of his guns out, clicking the safety off and resting the barrel against the pig-faced man's forehead.

"Shhh," he hums, quietly. "You're beginning to annoy me."

"Don' shoot—DON' SHOOT!"

The door to the warehouse is opened and the fat man stares at him with wide eyes; he places a finger to his lips, shifting his gun a bit to remind him who's playing God right now.

"Oi, Sas'ke, his damn truck is packin' with all of 'Kashi's coke," a white-haired man says, jabbing a thumb in the air, over his shoulder.

Sasuke's dark eyes turn to the fat man, his eyebrows raised with accusation.

"You were lying to me, Jirobo," he drawls, picking the cig out from in between his lips with his thumb and forefinger. He hands it to the woman behind him, licks his lips and shifts his weight from one leg to the other.

"N-no!"

"No, yes, yes you were. You told me you hadn't bought all those grams of coke, and that you only owed my Boss-man a few hundred bucks from your _last_ trade. You told me you were out of the business," Sasuke says, his voice growing deadlier and deadlier. "So you have been lying to me all this time. And to my face, no less. I think I'm offended."

Jirobo shakes his head, frantically. "No, you missund'stood! I—I said I was going to go and pay—"

Blood splatters the warehouse's ground, behind the chair, and Jirobo's head drooped forwards, blood leaking from the gunshot wound in the middle of his forehead.

Sasuke drops his hand and curls his lips in disgust. "Fuckin' annoying sack of shit."

He turns around sliding his gun back to its holster and accepting the cig the red-haired woman hands him. "Suigetsu, haul his ass back on that truck. We're taking him to Kakashi."

Suigetsu lets out a sigh, kicking the chair back and letting it drop over the blood and brain matter with a squelch. He bends down, taking one of Jirobo's legs and begins to drag him outside. "Goddamn, always get stuck with all the nasty jobs, I swear."

He watches him disappear behind one of the shelves and then Sasuke turns to face the rest of the warehouse, eyeing the tables, the chairs, the blood and all the pathetic crap stored inside. There wasn't anything worth salvaging—no good arsenal or drugs or anything. Jirobo was a pathetic drug dealer; a cockroach in the underground world. Taking him out had been a_ gift _that Sasuke had granted.

"C'mon," he tells the woman, walking to the gallons of gasoline they'd brought in with them upon catching Jirobo like the rat he was. He handed one to the woman and they quickly began to soak the place up with its contents, both making sure not to get any on themselves.

Dumping the empty gallons on the floor, they made their way towards the door with Sasuke pausing at the entrance, flicking his lighter on and throwing it behind him.

"Sasuke, you goddamn asshole," she screams as they both run and throw themselves on the ground as the warehouse bursts into flames with a violent roar.

They crawl back to their feet a few seconds later, Sasuke smirking with the adrenaline rush coursing through his roots.

"You shoul'a let her die," Suigetsu comments, hopping into the driver's seat of the truck and watching them circle to the passenger's and back seat.

Sasuke scoffs, slamming the door closed. "Y'think I'd ever hear the end of it if I get Naruto's precious little sister killed?"

"I'm right here, asswipe," she hisses, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose.

"Shut up, Karin, no one cares about you."

Karin growls before throwing herself forward and putting Suigetsu in a headlock. The car begins to sway from side to side as Suigetsu begins to choke, his hands losing their hold on the steering wheel. Sasuke turns towards them, grabbing the steering wheel and glaring.

"Quit fuckin' around!"

In the bed of the pickup truck, Jirobo's corpse bangs from side to side, blood sloshing with the movements.

* * *

Namikaze Manor was the home of the Namikaze Family. The top family that ruled the underground world; every other family was either in alliance with them, or in alliance with each other in their attempts to take them down, take their money and everything they had control over.

The head Boss was named Minato and he had been Naruto's father.

They were all wiped out two years ago in a surprise ambush in their own home. Minato had been killed, his wife Kushina had been killed and just about all the gangsters that worked for him had gone down with them. The only ones alive to tell the tale are Kakashi, Naruto and Karin with a few others that could be ticked off with one hand.

Now, Namikaze Manor is just a base; everything left as it had been that fateful night to serve as a reminder—as a mind strengthening method and an emotional threat of what can happen.

Sasuke walks down the halls, an unlit cigarette in between his lips and his hands stuff in the pockets of his jackets. He doesn't lift his eyes off the ground, already knowing every little detail by memory. These are the halls that know every struggle he went through in his attempts to walk again; they know him as well as he knows them.

So he walks with his eyes downcast, staring at the burgundy rug and the stains that everyone tries to pretend aren't there until he reaches a specific room. Sasuke takes a hold of the cold doorknob and slowly turns it, pushing the door open and stepping in without a sound.

She is bent over a desk, a set of arsenal in display as she conceals them on her body.

Sasuke watches as she sensually straps a knife-holster around her thigh. She bends down and slides her stockings up her leg, slowly… Sensually…

She knows he's there.

He moves in, grabbing her hand just as she twists her torso, intent on shoving him away. He twists her arm and pulls it to her back, bending her over the table and allowing his lips to hover over her ear.

"You're a little hostile," he breathes out, smirking.

She grunts, trying to free herself of his hold.

She's a fireball; spiky short pink hair, cat-like green eyes and a killer smile. And she likes to test him with her short little dress and her stockings and her garter belt and her _heels_. A gangster shouldn't look that appetizing, lest she calls too much attention on herself and gets into trouble.

But not Sakura Haruno.

She prowls like she's on a runway, head tilted back and eyes observing everything under thick wine-red lashes, her hands shoved in her pockets, fingering her guns and calculating all the good places to aim a hit.

She drives him crazy and, "Where are you going?"

"As if I'd tell you," she sneers, grinding herself against him.

He takes a step back.

"You're still angry," he drawls, observing.

"Oh, fuck you."

"That's what made you angry," he chuckles.

She lowers her head, rolling it around to crack the kinks out of her neck and turning to spare him a glance from over her shoulder. "Would you let me go, already?"

"Not 'til you tell me where you're heading to."

Sakura scoffs, throwing her head back. "What, are you going to fuck me into submission?"

At this, Sasuke smirks, moving in on her until she's pressed against him. He buries his nose in her hair, smelling the faint fragrance of apples, jasmines and musk; he grows deep in his throat, muttering an "It wouldn't be the first time."

She tries to free herself, again, but his hold is iron-like and he twists at her arm a bit more just to hear her give that little scream of hers. He grins wickedly, his eyes on the twin pistols sitting on the table along with other little weapons she always manages to hide in her body.

"You _asshole_," he twists a bit more. "Okay, fine—_fine_!"

He lets her go and chuckles when she spins around and smacks at his chest, her green eyes dark with anger and annoyance. To Sasuke, she looks her prettiest when she's angry; not that he will ever tell her that, lest she gets cocky and tries to use it against him. But there was just something about how she grits her teeth and curls her pretty pink lips.

It's better than the placid girl he saw in the medical ward upon coming back to life after two years of being in a coma.

Sakura glares at him, rubbing at her sore wrist and throwing her arm out, letting her elbow pop. She grabs one of the two guns, locking the safety and propping her leg out up on the table and sliding it into her boots as well as giving him a glimpse of what she's wearing underneath her dress.

It's black and lacy.

"So tell me," he drawls, grabbing a chair and spinning it so he can sit on it backwards. He takes his seat, resting his chin on the edge of the back. "Where are you going?"

"Things are stirring up," she says, softly, standing to her full height and fixing her dress and her hair. "Akatsuki have set their eyes on Konoha, again, and are aiming to add it to their Empire."

Akatsuki is the new gang that sits on the top of the underground food chain; ruthless and selfish—their methods know no bounds. Sasuke once saw an image of one of their victims—cut in half by being chained up from the back of two cars, put into drive on opposite directions. Splat, went the body.

"Akatsuki moved to Kirigakure."

"Yeah," she says, sliding on a trench coat. "Two years ago, after they killed everyone—Minato, Kushina… And so many more."

Sasuke looks down towards the ground, absorbing it all in and then trying to pick it all apart. He looks up at Sakura, again, watching her finish her last touches of preparation, fixing her hair and then turning her attention towards him. Their eyes lock and that invisible electrical current strikes, again and it's like the magnet theory where they're pulled towards each other.

Sakura walks towards him, placing a finger under his chin and pushing him up until Sasuke has no choice but to stand up from his chair. He looks down at her just as she looks up at him, her smile sharp and the crooked corner making wicked promises.

"You're going to get dirt," he mutters.

She smirks, "I do like getting dirty."

He growls and she places her lips against his, firm and teasing; Sasuke curls his hands around her hips, thumbs rubbing circles against her hip-bones.

"No," she breathes out, pulling away and stepping back. "No, then all my preparations would have been for nothing."

Sasuke rolls his eyes, following her out the door and watching from the glass hall as she rode off in her favorite sleek black car.

* * *

Sai is working on a tattoo around her thigh—a garter with knives tucked under it. It's her dream to be covered in arsenal of every kind; she already has a pistol adorning the back of her right forearm and a grenade on the wrist of her other hand. Weapons have always fascinated her and the feeling only becomes stronger when she meets the mark of whatever she's aiming.

She's the Weapon's Mistress and its only right that her body is adorned by every single armory there is known to man.

She presses her lips together as he hits a rather tender spot and hisses when his fingers move to her inner thigh, spreading her legs apart and moving to crouch in between. She stares at him from under her lashes, watching the intensity of his dark eyes as he continues to work on her new tat, his fingers feathering her sensitive skin and turning her on more than it should.

Tenten's more of the kind to punch someone like Sai.

But at that very moment she wanted nothing more but to push him on his back, forget the tattoo and do wonders with him.

"Keep it up," she whispered, voice husky, "and I'll end up fucking you."

Sai looks up at her, his messy forelocks entangling with his lashes and a devilish smirk on his lips.

The door is opened, then, and it takes all of Tenten's strength to look away from the asshole in between her legs and up towards the intruder. Her brows furrowed and her lips curled into a sneer, fully prepared to tell whoever walked in to piss off because she's busy.

But then Sasuke stood in her doorway, leaning against the doorframe, an eyebrow raised and an amused smirk on his lips and Tenten's nasty side went back to sleep.

"Oh," she sighs. "It's you."

"Caught you with your pants down, junior."

She glares at him, a warning look in her eyes for the nickname he's so fully set on calling her after hearing about her origin.

Tenten's a street rat, born to some family she doesn't remember—that she doesn't even _know_—and abandoned, raised by the street and survived by her street-smarts. She's had a rough upbringing and she has more than a few skeletons in her closet but she was found by Anko and brought in to the Family that they all create and by all means is basically family to Anko now.

Mitarashi is pinned to her name when she isn't paying attention but Tenten likes to just go by her one and only name.

Sasuke calls her junior just to mock her and if he were any other person—if he didn't have a past so similar yet so different to hers—she'd shot him right in between the eyes, already. But there's a connection between the two and she's showing a soft spot she never even knew she had.

"And you're walking! What an enormous feat, now to potty train you!"

Sasuke glares at her, stepping into the room and walking over to inspect what is being done to her from behind Sai.

"Another one?"

"I ain't stopping until all of me is covered in 'em."

He rolls his eyes, sitting on the stool Sai had been sitting on before he chose to crouch in between her legs.

"What're you doing around here, anyway? You're always gone by this time."

Sasuke looks up at the clock hanging on the wall, reads that it's close to ten in the night. "Sakura's out."

"Oooh," Tenten cooed, standing from her chair and turning around, her legs still spread. "Hear that, Sai? He's waiting for his girl."

She laughs, making sure not to move so much as Sai continues his work, the buzz of the gun going by, ignored. "So why's the kitten out to play so late at night?"

"She's out to get dirt," Sasuke drawls, his eyes on her thigh, watching the garter came to life on her skin. "Says Akatsuki is coming to life, again."

"Che," Tenten scoffs, her brow furrowing as something like anger begins to bubble through her system at the sound of that name. "What's got them coming down from their throne? New meat to hunt?"

"That's why I came to find you; figured you'd heard something."

"Nah," she shakes her head, hissing when one of Sai's strokes hurt her. "News to me, right now."

"Sai?" they both ask in unison.

He looks up at them, leaning away from Tenten's thigh and running a hand through his hair with the one that isn't holding on to the tattoo gun. "If you don't know, what makes you think I would?"

"You're Sai," Tenten says, shrugging a shoulder and supporting her upper weight with her elbows. "You hear things. Especially _here_ in this room where the bloody gangsters come to get little dolls and broken hearts inked on their skins."

Sai snorts, returning to his work. "No, I haven't heard a thing."

Tenten scoffs again, shaking her head. "Typical."

It stays quiet, after that, with Sasuke observing Sai's work and Sai engrossed on the ink tainting Tenten's thigh and Tenten trying to match her heartbeat to the rhythm of the buzz of the tattoo gun just because it felt like a little challenge. And those were always fun to do, even if it's just for the fun of it.

* * *

She straddles him as he sits on his chair, her arms snaking around him and her lips hovering just an inch away from his ear, breathing into the shell and smirking when she feels him shiver. She scrapes her nails up and down his back, through the material of his dark button-up shirt, massages soothing circles before scraping even harder.

"C'mon," she whispers, "won't you tell me?"

He shifts, the handcuffs keeping his hands behind him rattling with his movements.

"I ain't telling you anything, stupid bitch," he spits out.

"Tsk," she clucks her tongue, standing up and ignoring the way her dress rides up her long legs. "Figures. You little runts don't ever do anything the easy way."

"We don't like to get dirty, babe."

She whirls around, punching him in the nose, her green eyes shining with annoyance. "You can call me a stupid bitch but keep the petnames to yourself, Zaku. I have no desire to hear them come out of _your_ nasty little mouth."

Zaku laughs, spitting out blood and staring at him with his angry dark eyes.

"Now," she says, quickly taking a hold of her composure. She walks around his chair, observing the musty little motel room she managed to rent after picking him off the street—now that had not been as easy as one would think, Zaku being one of Akatsuki cockroaches tends to wander the streets of Konoha, making sure all of Akatsuki's prostitutes and dealers are in line and to have gotten her guess right at the second try had been pure luck—and making sure the curtains are close and the door is locked.

"Now," she repeats, "here's what's going to happen. You're going to tell me everything you know… Or I'll cut your pretty little ears off."

Zaku laughs, again, tilting his head and observing her from under his lashes, his eyes devouring every inch of her. "You're gonna hav'ta do better than that, Haruno. I ain't scared of you."

"Ooh," she purrs, taking her knife out and flicking it open. "Should I fix that little problem, then?"

He stares at her.

"I'll ask one last time, Zaku," Sakura says, jutting a hip out and placing her hand over it. "Spit out all the information a little cockroach like you can know and your precious face won't be harmed."

"What's there to know?" He barks out a laugh, throwing his head back. "I know what happened that night, two years ago—"

"Sh, sh, shhh," she is quick to interrupt him, walking closer and cupping his face in one of her hands. "We don't talk about that, now, do we?"

Zaku smirks, showing her his bloodied teeth, blood still oozing out his nose. "Which night do you think I'm referring to, doll? The one in that fancy mansion of yours… Or the one with the U—"

Sakura aims another punch at him, taking a couple of steps back and waving her hand around to ease down the pain on her knuckles. She grabs the roll of duct tape sitting on the bed and smirks as she begins to walk towards him. She rips a good portion of it and slaps it onto his mouth, repeating the action until she's satisfied. She furrows her brow, slicing at his cheek and feeling pleased with how muffled his scream of pain come out. She runs a hand through her short hair, kisses her knife for good luck and straddles him once again.

"Well, puppy, you asked for this."

Muffled screams have always been her favorite genre of music.


	3. Questions

**dedication: **to the Holy Trinity (I hope y'all know who they are by now c'mon peeps) and to Chloe's anon "pirate lord" who i am guessing follows all three of us (myself, Chloe and Daisy) and seems to not like this fad we're bringing up. Boo you whore.  
**summary: **The person that you take a bullet for is behind the trigger.  
**notes:** my vindictive side got me to write this entire chapter in one sitting JUST SO I CAN SHOW "PIRATE LORD" THAT I AM THE MOST OBNOXIOUS OF THE THREE. HERE I AM, HERE I AM, WEARING BRIGHT ORANGE CAN YOU SEE ME I AM THE MOST OBNOXIOUS! HEY, GUYS, IF YOU HAVEN'T GO READ "Dead End Street" by The Scarlett Ribbon and "Full Throttle" by JinnySkeans!

Y'all bitches on this site are too much, you make me laugh. I also hope Lala94 and the kyuubisomethingwhatever anons review this one and complain to me about how little Sakura and SasuSaku there is in my fics and that they're disappointed so I can have a decent laugh and TRY to pretend I care.

For the people I haven't scared off, have fun reading! (:

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* * *

He wakes up to the stench of blood. It's the kind of wakeup call where he snaps his eyes open and sits up, running a hand down the length of his face and then running it back to get his hair out of the way. He blinks his eyes and turns, watches as Sakura curls into herself with something like a satisfied smile on her lips, dried blood still caked on random places of her body where she failed—or didn't care enough—to wash it off completely.

Sasuke blinks again and shoves her off the bed.

"Excuse you!"

"You reek like blood," he says, his tone low and heavy with sleep. "It's annoying—go shower."

"Are you telling me I smell bad?"

"Yes."

She stares at him, sitting up and raising an eyebrow in that way that Sasuke has mixed feelings about. It's like she's challenging him and silently waiting for him to lose control at the sight of her laced bra and massive amount of skin. Except Sasuke has been practicing on this and regardless of how much he wants to push her back and rememorize her entire body by licking every inch of skin he sees, he holds back because she seriously reeks like blood.

"Legit," he drawled, "go shower."

"I can't believe—"

"Did you massacre the guy or something? How many were there?"

"You know we don't talk about the business when we're at home."

Home is a loft at the other side of the city, by the outskirts with the music of the freeway as a lullaby every night. It's Sakura's place and Sasuke agreed to live with her when, upon regaining his ability to walk, was given the option to live there or in the manor. Sasuke didn't really like Namikaze Manor; there was this air, this foul stench in the air that always made him brittle up like cat.

"We ain't talking about the business; I'm just asking how many of them there were."

Sakura is quiet, tucking strands of her stringy hair behind her ear. She looks something like amazing, Sasuke thinks, laying on the bed in nothing but her bra and panties, smelling like the metallic tang of blood and the rotten stench of death and looking so fucking amazing—he swears, he doesn't know who he had been before his accident, but right now he was descending into a madman because of her.

"One," she hums, moving the sheets out of the way and standing up. "Just one little cockroach."

"Did you kill him?"

She pauses by the door, pressing her front against it and raising her leg up in a pin-up pose. She purses her lips, raises her eyebrow and her eyes shine a gold and green and everything in between. "No."

And when it comes to Sakura that can mean so much. That can mean that she ran him over enough times to leave him on a bed for the rest of his life, on the brink of death but still good enough to survive. When she says that, it's as if saying she went through various torture methods to get what she wants and then leaving the sorry bastard drowning in his own blood with her walking away, kissing her favorite blade.

Sasuke swallows and she purrs, curling her forefinger and demanding he follows her as she glides to the shower.

* * *

Tenten groans, sliding off of Sai and grabbing a shirt from the ground—she hopes it's Sai's so it can cover all of her up because she wasn't going to waste time looking for panties—and walking out of the room. She runs a hand through her hair, smirking at how damp it is because of all of the workout she was having and the thought makes her want to forget the cockblock on the other side of the door and just go back to her fun.

But nonetheless, she yanks the door open and gives the sorry asshole a hard glare.

Except it's Sasuke.

So her glare intensifies ten times more.

"What the serious fuck you asshole," she stage whispers, "I'm kind of in the middle of something!"

Sasuke observes her and Tenten watches as his eyes go down to her toes and up her legs and up until his eyes connect with hers again. His eyebrows go up and that goddamn smirk of his that makes Tenten wants to punch it off his face and then smear his blood all over his face. But she's all hot and bothered and she just wants to get off while riding Sai and Sasuke is being a complete _cockblock_.

"Are you fucking naked under that shirt."

"Yes, yes I fucking am."

He chuckles and Tenten wants to punch him.

"You damn slut," he says, pocketing his hands in his leather jacket and leaning against the dooframe. "You're fucking Sai aren't you."

"He's fucking attractive," she huffs. And then blinks, shaking her head and stomping a foot. "What do you want, can I go back to fucking the shit out of him?"

"No."

Tenten sneers at him and curls her hand into a fist, aiming it at his jaw but Sasuke snatches her wrist—like he always does when he's not off guard—and smacks it back down, rolling his eyes as if completely used to Tenten's antics. And he probably is; two nameless killers with blood on their hands and no history to tie them down to the world… That's a powerful bond and Tenten will size up anyone that says otherwise.

"What do you _mean_ 'no'?"

"We're got some clean-up to do."

She furrows her brow, eyes narrowed because what even is that? She doesn't remember getting a call or anything. "Clean-up? What kind of clean-up?"

"Look at it this way, you get to go on a spree."

Nothing beats going on a spree, for Tenten. Not even sex. So she's quick to whirl around, rush into her room and change into something decent and kiss Sai goodbye with a thank-you for the good time before she returns to the front and let's Sasuke lead her. She knows what Sasuke means by doing some clean-up. Konoha is Kakashi's turf but there's a city nearby—a dead end, a dead town dressed in neon lights and hazy smoke and that's where all of Kakashi's goons go to relieve some stress and seek information.

Everyone knows something in a dead little town like Otogakure.

She slides into the passenger's seat, locking and loading her gun and fishing around her steel-toed combat boots for the knife she'd shoved in there in her haste to get dressed quickly. Sasuke lets the engine roar before he floors it, tires screeching and burning the concrete as he drives without any kind of restraints, zig-zagging down the streets and towards the highway, life out of the car a complete kaleidoscope.

"So," she drawls, lowering the volume to the punk rock on the radio and stealing one of Sasuke's cigs. "What's our aim?"

He shakes his head and Tenten raises an eyebrow at him. "So we're just goin' to kill some goons?"

"Yeah."

It's quiet and all they hear is the whipping of the wind and their hair as they drive fast and crazy, the windows down and the music low but still audible. Tenten leans back in her seat, putting her feet up on the dashboard and smirking because she knows Sasuke hates that. "I dig that."

* * *

Sakura slides onto her seat, a leg crossed over the other and her head tilted back a bit, staring back at Kakashi from under her red-violet eyelashes.

Kakashi is gorgeous; silver hair, pale skin, thin but strong jawline and tall and lean. She's known him for as long as she can remember, from when she was fourteen and her parents were killed during a nasty war in the middle of the streets and she was left crying by their corpses like a sorry excuse of a Bruce Wayne. Kakashi had been one of those fighting—the good or bad guys, the line blurs and Sakura has learnt to not care about that—and extended his hand, taking her in and letting her clean his place up while he was away on business.

Six months after that was the first time Sakura killed someone and Kakashi had returned to find a rotting corpse and an anxious girl having no clue of how to dispose of it.

And the rest is history.

Now, Kakashi sits on a thick and comfortable burgundy chair, an elbow resting on the arm of his seat and his hand supporting his chin, one of his eyes covered up by an eyepatch and the other one staring at the glass of whiskey on the rocks sitting in front of him. He looks deep in thought—puzzled and slightly amused. After everything he's seen and survived, Sakura doesn't think Kakashi cares much for anything.

"He didn't know anything interesting, then?"

"Nothing other than what we knew."

"Hmm," he hums.

"Of course," Sakura goes on, her fingers playing with the strap of her garter belt. "He had the habit of mentioning _that_ night to me. His face is everything but recognizable after I was through with him."

Kakashi chuckles, reaching for his glass of whiskey and taking a sip of it, his lips pressed together and his eyes narrowed in thought. "Yes, everyone seems to be rather… Fond of that night."

"History," she smiles, leaning back in her seat and fingering her short pink hair.

"And Sasuke?"

Sakura turns to him at the mention of her boyfriend.

Hm, she hums to herself, pursing her pink lips and shrugging a shoulder. "Doesn't know a thing."

"At all?"

"No," she sighs, "He's interested. You know Sasuke; bloodshed calls to him like a second name. But he knows nothing."

Kakashi nods. "Good. Keep it that way."

She stands up and makes for the door, her steps slow and casual. Speaking of her boyfriend… she hasn't seen him since the night before when he so rudely accused her of stinking. He was up and gone long before she woke up and Sakura sometimes wonder what kinds of mess he gets himself into; he almost always loves when Kakashi sends him to hunt for sorry bastards that try to play him dirty. Sasuke has a thing for questioning idiots and promising them life if they cooperate even if he has no intentions to do such a thing.

She supposes that's one thing he still has intact, from his past life.

"Sakura."

She turns towards Kakashi, an eyebrow raised in question.

"And what happened to Zaku, in the end?"

Sakura blinks her green eyes and scoffs, letting out a soft laugh and shaking her head as if berating him for forgetting the kind of woman she is. "Let's just say the lady that got the job to clean that room was in for a rude awakening."

She leaves him in his solitude with nothing but his chuckles as his company. Sakura grins.

* * *

"Christ!" Tenten whines, sarcastically, poking her head out from the other side of the bar table. "You gorillas can't see a lady trying to get drunk in the company of a good friend because you start trying to take her down!"

She takes a swig of a bottle—it looks like Jack Daniels, Tenten did always like the hard stuff—and unsheathes her knife, staring at the gangbangers trying to jump her and Sasuke and then throwing it with careful precision and making her mark, straight for the guy's stomach. It's like straight out of a movie, if Sasuke wasn't living it right then and there he would have never believed that a girl like Tenten and her freaky aim existed.

They don't call her the weapon's mistress for nothing, he supposes.

He hits a bulky guy with the butt of his gun, yanking him by the hair and repeating the assault until he's satisfied with the amount of blood gushing from his—now—broken nose. Quickly, he spins the gun in his grip and shoots down another idiot trying to run towards him with the intentions to tackle him to the ground. Tenten jumps over the bar table, grabs a broken glass from the ground and throws it his way.

Sasuke freezes, his lips parting but then he blinks out of his stupor when he hears a thud as someone falls to the groud. He should really be used to that—Tenten has no qualms about her methods on how to get her job done.

"Keep one alive," he mutters to her as they move around the dingy little pub, kicking ass and shooting down those that are too far for them to reach.

In the end, Sasuke comes out with a nasty cut on his thigh and Tenten with one on her forehead that may or may not have been accidentally self-inflicted. Both are surprise because when you do something stupid like walk into a pub infested with little thugs that hate Konoha and those from Namikaze, you should expect to come out with a couple of bullet wounds here and there.

"Caught you a fly," Tenten drawls, throwing a man on the ground and placing her foot on his back. "What're we lookin' for?"

Sasuke shakes his head, grabbing the arms of the man and waiting for her to follow his lead and grab his legs. Together, they brought the man out and stashed him into Sasuke's car; he's cursing at all the work it's going to take to wash the blood out of the interior and kicking himself because he should have brought a different car other than his.

In the distance, police sirens begin to sing and Sasuke and Tenten lock eyes as they get to their seats and drive their asses out of Otogakure and towards the road to Konoha.

Sasuke swerves to the left a good distance away from Oto, driving onto the dirt on the side of the road far enough so the shadows of dusk could shade and hide their car out a bit. They take the man out, taking his shirt off and tying his hands up with it.

"Wakey, wakey," Tenten sings, crouching down and slapping the man a couple of times. She laughs when he comes back into consciousness, his eyes growing wide as he takes in his predicament and the two terrors standing before him. "Oooh, looks like we caught a good collaborator, Sasuke. You think this is a good thing or a bad one?"

"We'll see," he says, smirking and crouching down on the man's other side. "Hello, you seem to have gone through a bit of a rough time, huh? Do you need something? A drink, maybe? There's a gas station not too far from here, I can get my partner to go fetch you something."

The man shakes his head, too startled to say a word.

Ah, he's one of those. The ones that are quit to spit out anything they're asked for.

No fun at all.

"No? Okay, that's fine. I have a couple of things in my trunk, anyway." On the other side, Tenten snickers. Sasuke clears his throat. "So I have a couple of questions. Just a couple, I hope you don't mind or anything. They're not that troublesome."

"I—I—I don't know anything!"

"Sh, sh, sh," Sasuke soothes, patting the man in the head. Why join a gang if you can't hang? "Now, now, let's keep our cool, okay? You don't wanna cause a show and I don't wanna lose my temper. So let's play nice, okay?"

The man gulps.

"First question… You know Akatsuki?"

The man opens his mouth, "Y-yes!"

"Hm, yes, so do we," Sasuke nods, playing with his gun, his fingertips running up and down the cool metal. "My actual question is this: do you have any information on them? Absolutely anything?"

"I—I—"

"Do you know their motives?"

"I—"

"Do you know why they're coming back after two years?"

"I—"

"Say 'I' one more time and I swear to god I'll cut your tongue out," Sasuke hisses, his eyes darkening and his lips curling back in a sneer.

He watches the tears begin to bring the man's eyes and, if any other person, if not a ruthless gangbanger himself, he would feel sympathy. But the asshole chose this life; no one held a gun on point, ready to blast his brains out and force him to join a gang, stock up on arsenal and go around, fucking women, sniffing coke, stealing and other illegal shit. Motherfucker chose it and if he can't handle this side of a gangster's life than Sasuke should just do him the favor and kill him right then.

"Wait—okay, okay! I know some stuff, I swear!"

Sasuke tilts his head. "Talk."

And so, Sasuke and Tenten begin to listen to a story they know by memory; about Akatsuki and Namikaze and the bloodshed that happened two years ago that gained them the spot at the very top of the gangster foodchain. Sasuke closes his eyes as he lets the poor fool go on, smirking at Tenten's sighs of agitation and only unlocking his gun and shooting him in the head when he finished.

"I already heard that story," he drawls, standing back up and walking towards the car. "Get rid of him, yeah?"

Tenten's eyes sparkle as she stands up and practically frolics to the trunk of the car, almost singing with love and adoration to the stuff Sasuke carries around, concealed under the trunk's carpet.

* * *

He returns back home with no information, annoyed beyond belief.

He strips out of his clothes as he walks around the loft, heading into the shower and allowing the warm water to ease his sore muscles and clean the nasty cut on his thigh. In his fury, he had forgotten about it but as it begins to sting against the water, Sasuke's head pulses with its reminder. He should clean it and bandage it up.

But all thoughts of his lack of dirt on whatever Sakura was refusing to tell him—if she knew anything, at all, which he's beginning to question—is lost when the shower curtain is moved aside and his vixen of a girlfriend joins him in his shower, placing open kisses on his chest and squealing when he lifts her up and wraps her legs around his hips.

This is just the beginning, he reminds himself, getting lost in everything that is Sakura. Someway, somehow, he is going to find out what the hell is going on and put himself in the frontlines. No one causes a big commotion without at least inviting him; Sasuke loves watching bodies fall almost as much as he loves to fuck Sakura senseless.

_Soon_, he repeats, smirking.


End file.
